Those Dam Beavers!!

[Hal4son]

It's best to leave the castors connected. Hang them over a nail or a piece of wire to dry. Turn them in a day or so to dry the parts that were touching. Then put in a zip lock bag and into the freezer until ready for market or use.

The meaty membrane on the castors will generally roll off if you rub your thumb into the seam. It's best to use the knife as little as possible when cleaning off the membrane to reduce nicking the castors. You want that fluid to stay in the castor. The yellow material and fluid is the internal parts of the castors.

Photo 1- What you have listed as testicles appears to be the oil sacs to me. It'll have a thick white material inside. That is what the beaver uses during grooming. I generally milk that into a pill bottle and put in the freezer until ready for use. The baculum is identified correctly. It's a boy!

Photo 2- The labeled oil sac appears to be part of the torn castor.

Photo 3- Yep, nice castor!

I failed to congratulate you on your success earlier...Rock on! Nice job!

 

[Ezana4CE]

Came home empty handed. I got out late because I was waiting for a storm to blow over. I probably got out around 11-11:30pm. Around 1am I assume I was busted because a beaver slapped the water with its tail before it dove down. I’d only seen them do that while on the banks before hitting the water. Tonight I saw a couple in the water. From my position, I didn’t feel comfortable taking a shot at some of these swimming beavers. I used the thermal scanner and a couple spotlight illuminators again in conjunction with my .25 Brocock Bantam Sniper HR. I didn’t have time to troubleshoot sighting in the Pard again yesterday. I did notice that my thermal scanner could pick up a beaver’s head from about 45-50 yards out while swimming. That was kinda nice to see.

These are some slick creatures. I watched them swim their security laps. A couple of times one swam very close to my position. Too close to try and shoot. It’s tough to hear them swimming, leaving the water, or surfacing. The ripples give them away while swimming. I felt like I could hear them rummaging or foraging in the brush, but I couldn’t see them. I can say this, the pond is draining and I don’t know if they’re brave enough to attempt to fix it. I’ll give it a shot tomorrow weather permitting.

Picture of the pond from yesterday evening before I went out on my set.

@Hal4son Thanks for your input and compliment. I sure hope you’re wrong. Please don’t tell me I have his nuts on ice. When I cut those sacs off I saw a few drops of a yellowish liquid towards the top. In one of the videos I watched the trapper explain that the testes sit up high within its abdomen. I hope I didn’t misunderstand something. I get it figured out tomorrow. If they’re the wrong part, I’ll just have to toss them. I fed the carcass to the crows, buzzards, and coyotes. I got my information from this video -

 

[Billinoregon]

Ezana, you are not permitted to flesh and otherwise prepare the pelt for personal use, but are required to waste it? I get why you need a trapper's license to sell the pelts, but if you keep them for your own use and projects?
By the way, my trapper friend kept all the bits of flesh and fat from the fleshing operation and cooked them down to cracklins on a Coleman stove. We kept the oil -- I still have some in my freezer all these years later -- but fed the cracklins to the cats, which caused them to behave as if on catnip. Pretty hilarious.

 

[Ezana4CE]

Ezana, you are not permitted to flesh and otherwise prepare the pelt for personal use, but are required to waste it? I get why you need a trapper's license to sell the pelts, but if you keep them for your own use and projects?…

@Billinoregon That is correct under these circumstances regarding nuisance beavers.

 

[Hal4son]

I must apologize for my error in perception identifying the oil glands.

 

[Ezana4CE]

@Hal4son No worries. You had me concerned for a minute. I had to go back and look again myself to be sure. I was thinking that I may have had you turned around because the tail was facing up towards the top of the photo instead of down. I’ve seen that video as well. That’s the guy smoking the cigarette while filming and he skinned it before going to work on removing the sacs.

 

[Ezana4CE]

I mentioned that the beavers are destroying a bridge and I’d like to illustrate what I mean and show another reason these are nuisance animals at this location.

This hole is where they burrowed into the embankment down to the water. It’s easily a five foot burrow. It’s also next to a guard rail support. Additionally you can see the embankment eroding around where the dirt leads up to the road threatening to begin eroding the asphalt. For a better idea on the erosion see the lower portion of the aerial photo (the embankment on both sides) in my first post in this thread. This is an arterial road connecting rural communities to a city a couple towns over, so it is imperative to keep this bridge in tip-top shape. The appropriate agencies have been notified of the problem as well.

This hole leads into the water and the lodge is approximately 10 to 15 yards from here.

Pictured below is a close up of erosion on the embankment across the waterway (straight across from the above photo). No burrowing on this side, but the flood water comes up into the bottom of the eroded area. Plus it rains heavy in this area so it’s only a matter of time before the water cuts further into these areas. Then the asphalt will begin to erode.

 

[HogKiller]

Oh you guys in the real world will like this. I live in the South SF Bay Area, pray for me please. We have beavers returning to creeks around here and the people are just all thrilled about it. Not realizing the damage they do. By the time they figure it out it'll be almost too late. People out of the metropolitan areas get it.

 

[Ezana4CE]

@HogKiller Hopefully your regional civil engineers ,biologists, and wildlife experts are ahead of things. I had a long conversation with a wildlife manager before undertaking this hunt. I asked if they do any relocation or if there are any alternatives to killing them. I was told to shoot them. Personally I’ve driven into water that spilled onto a roadway from a pond where beavers breached a berm. It was storming and I was driving home from work on a dark rural road. I hit the water and didn’t realize it was there until I was in it. The water came over the top of my truck’s cab. I could’ve hydroplaned and spun off the road. The thought of that happening another person scared me. I contacted a tenant of that land and encouraged them to contact the property owner about repairing the pond. So I understand some of the dangers that their engineering can present with flooding. That’s exactly what drew me to this permission. I saw some high water around the bridge and started contacting people until I was put in touch with the right people. I even wrote officials in the capital of their state.

Beavers are truly marvelous animals with a place in our respective ecosystems. They are described as keystone creatures. I understand this to mean that they possess the ability to alter an environment creating a wetland or swamp-like habitat in which various birds, aquatic, and semi-aquatic plants and animals can thrive. They are natural engineers that act as environmental lynchpins so to speak. However, if their populations go unchecked they can present infrastructure problems for municipalities and costly damage for property owners.
Some of the wetlands in your region are absolutely gorgeous, but I hope they don’t start creating them in neighborhoods. That may prove disastrous. If you see something I encourage you to report it and try to get others to do the same. My intent with this thread is document my hunting nuisance beavers with air rifles and to illustrate how they can become problematic animals. I love hunting, but I don’t feel the need to kill everything. I believe I’m contributing to some sort of healthy balance, but I may never know if that’s true or not.

 

[Privateer]

The County I live in, in Ohio, has very little in the way of dealing with Pests.
Local Game Warden would be quickly over run with just Trash Panda removal!
And in Ohio? You can not relocate them! That's a Law! Trap and kill.
We were told to SSS. No questions asked.

 

[Ezana4CE]

@Privateer Completely understandable. In rural communities members of the community do a lot of the work due to what I assume are small budgets. I think being proactive helps. Also we tend to have a lot more animals in rural areas as they’re drawn to agricultural crops or we just live in their natural environment. Whether we’re talking raccoons, coyotes, hogs, beavers, etc. We are aware that certain animal populations can become problematic for us if left unchecked (plants too in my area). In the instance of beavers, the issue(s) can compound as they alter waterways and cut down a significant amounts of timber having myriad effects that are in-your-face evident if one pays attention. Last night a deputy was asking me about them because she says she lives in the area, but never noticed them. I told her what to look for as she may never see an actual beaver, but evidence of their activity is obvious once you know what you’re looking at. I have read of laws against relocation in my state, but I’m still acquainting myself with hunting regs and laws of other states so I ask when I’m unsure or if the regs are written with ambiguity.

 

[wolfdog]

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Just unpacked from a beaver set. I can say this has been quite the experience. I’m tired, had some action tonight, worked hard earlier busting up the dam. I thought I was going out there with my NV setup but ran into hiccups on my pre-hunt sight in.

Below was my intended setup minus the Caldwell turret.
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Ended up dumping the Pard NV008s LRF and the external IR torch because I didn’t take enough time enough time sighting it in again after swapping scopes. After two unsuccessful sight-in attempts I said screw it. It cost me an hour. So I threw on my Bushnell Engage 4-16x44 IR FFP and sighted it in. After two bullseyes from 25 yards I was ready to go. I went out with my thermal scanner, my ScanPro headlamp, and a rifle-mounted torch. Unfortunately no videos or photos other than a few thermal images of a beaver that was pretty close to me on the other side of a thicket in what I assume is their feeding area on the other side of the dam. That is unless the trail cam picked up some of the action. I also have photos of the dam, pond, lodge, and other elements of this permission.

This is a beaver lodge
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These are areas that I dug out today to breach the dam.
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I’ll try to work on updating the thread this weekend as I’ll be working this permission this weekend. All I can say is this is a different type of hunting. A lot to take in.

View of beaver pond through an AGM Asp Micro TM160
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This is the beaver (I spotted through some brush with a thermal scanner the black spot on the photo below ). I didn’t know it was a beaver for some time . It didn’t appear to have moved much. I thought I was picking up a patch of water through the thicket until I scanned minutes later and it was gone. The water was still warmer than the air so it showed up black as well. Shortly after I spotted a beaver on top of the dam and shot it standing behind my Primos Trigger Stick bipod. The animals’s position was close to a perfect broadside, I knew the range, i knew my holds, there was no wind, and a half moon. I would not have known it was in the area without my thermal scanner. I didn’t hear it move onto the dam. It was tough to hear over the running water from the breaks I dug into in the dam, industrial activity, and automobile traffic in the background. It was also quite humid this evening. It rained the night before. Humidity was around 74%.
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I’ll return to the pond tomorrow to see if a carcass floated to the top of the pond somewhere. I also need to see how much patchwork they’re going to do tonight. I suspect they may try to build a new dam downstream a bit. About a half hour before I left, I heard them fell a pretty good sized tree. Despite all of the activity, I left by the time I’d notified the Sherriff that I’d be out of the area. One thing about it, this is new territory and I’m working on this permission in another state. They have different regulations and I had to talk to a couple of agencies and departments. These beavers are destroying a bridge here and they have destroyed quite a bit of timber as well as breached several people’s ponds in the area. I’ll post more about it tomorrow.

Thank you to @Monkyshine and @TheIceman for sharing your knowledge and guidance.

you want them out of there use traps won't take long

 

[wolfdog]

you want them out of there use traps won't take long work with the game department

 

[HogKiller]

@HogKiller Hopefully your regional civil engineers ,biologists, and wildlife experts are ahead of things. I had a long conversation with a wildlife manager before undertaking this hunt. I asked if they do any relocation or if there are any alternatives to killing them. I was told to shoot them. Personally I’ve driven into water that spilled onto a roadway from a pond where beavers breached a berm. It was storming and I was driving home from work on a dark rural road. I hit the water and didn’t realize it was there until I was in it. The water came over the top of my truck’s cab. I could’ve hydroplaned and spun off the road. The thought of that happening another person scared me. I contacted a tenant of that land and encouraged them to contact the property owner about repairing the pond. So I understand some of the dangers that their engineering can present with flooding. That’s exactly what drew me to this permission. I saw some high water around the bridge and started contacting people until I was put in touch with the right people. I even wrote officials in the capital of their state.

Beavers are truly marvelous animals with a place in our respective ecosystems. They are described as keystone creatures. I understand this to mean that they possess the ability to alter an environment creating a wetland or swamp-like habitat in which various birds, aquatic, and semi-aquatic plants and animals can thrive. They are natural engineers that act as environmental lynchpins so to speak. However, if their populations go unchecked they can present infrastructure problems for municipalities and costly damage for property owners.
Some of the wetlands in your region are absolutely gorgeous, but I hope they don’t start creating them in neighborhoods. That may prove disastrous. If you see something I encourage you to report is and try to get others to do the same. Hopefully this thread illustrates how they can become problematic. I love hunting, but I don’t feel the need to kill everything. I believe I’m contributing to some sort of healthy balance, but I may never know if that’s true or not.

You have to realize that I reside in the state of STUPID. They are celebrating these critters, just until the flooding will star. The sound you hear will be me laughing my butt off.

 

[Ezana4CE]

I took a night off because I think the beavers are on high alert, I was sore, and tired. The night before last I did not see evidence of activity. I got busted and when I inspected the dam the next day they had not patched it up. The dam is draining nicely. I can see evidence of how far the water has receeded. The drainage ditch is clearing, more of the fence line has become visible, and am beginning to see parts of the land that’s been submerged for a couple of years.

Here’s a photo showing how the beaver pond has been draining and to give you more of an idea of how far the water is backed up.

It was tough to get the length of the backed up waterway in one frame.

Someone suggested that I look for secondary or other dams in this water system. I haven’t identified any. If you see something please point it out. I intend to go back out tonight. I’m hoping that I threw the beavers off and they relax enough to come out and get busy. Later in the afternoon I intend to check the trail cam footage and maybe clear out some brush. I’ll be set up in a different area tonight if the wind cooperates.

Yesterday I walked the entire length of the dam for the first time now that the water level has dropped. I’d say it’s down about a foot or more. It appears that a good sized dog has been in the area. I wonder if that spooked them.

I did leave the carcass toward the treeline for coyotes. The idea is that I’m hoping they may get a whiff of the scent on the carcass and like the taste of beaver and then go hunting them to help control the population. I imagine this would only be necessary for a young coyote. The older ones probably eat a beaver or two when the opportunity presents itself.

 

[fuznut]

Set conifer or kill traps right near where you damaged their dam. The more the better every beaver in the lodge will come to repair the dam. Use at least 330s or bigger and be careful they can break your arm not to mention fingers. Place half submerged in water. Shoot what you can when you can but that alone won't get you there. Foot holds require a big one for beaver and a drowning set up. Beavers are strong and bad about pulling out of foot hold traps. You can also gas them by drilling into the lodge or running a hose into one of their underwater entrances with propane. Won't hurt them but make your hunts far more productive. Good luck eradicating beavers can be a tough job prob have lodges you don't know about.

 

[Ezana4CE]

@fuznut It’s a long thread I know, but I’ve covered part of why I’m not trapping at this permission. In short, I’m working out of state and I’m not a licensed trapper here. However, I am a licensed hunter. I am not comfortable bending or breaking regulations unless some sort of exemptions are made or there is an emergency that can be explained. Each night I come out I have to notify the police. I have spoken to several agencies prior to undertaking this task and I’m supposed to be working with them, but so far no one has called me and I haven’t seen anyone else at the site.

lol at “conifer” trap. I know what you meant though.

 

[Ezana4CE]

Just got in from a dead set. Didn’t see any type of activity. Earlier in the day I dug a fourth hole in this dam (not pictured). I’m under the impression that these beavers may have gone elsewhere. The last time I saw one was the day after I killed the first one. I didn’t feel comfortable taking a shot at the last one I saw swimming a couple of days ago. At this point I’m stumped. They’re not repairing the dam and the pond’s water level has really gone down. Not sure how to proceed from here. I may have to make a few follow up calls.

I’m wondering if they swam upstream or went downstream with the water. I guess the Brocock Bantam Sniper HR has them shook up.

 

[Hal4son]

They didn't leave. You spooked them. It is really normal when family members stop coming home to hole up for a good period of time. It's very likely they were swimming around the body before you pulled it out and know he's gone. Somewhere around here I have video of that kind of activity (around a submerged trap with the mate)...on an old computer.

Since you're not trapping, I'd give it a couple weeks rest before spending another night out there. Let them fix the dam breaks and settle down.

 

[Ezana4CE]

@Hal4son I may have messed up by applying too much pressure. The water doesn’t look deep enough to do much swimming at a considerable depth. I may call about seeing if I can get an exception for a trapper’s license. The way it stands, if I purchase one now it’s only good for a month and I’d have to buy another after for next season. Thanks for the tip. I’d been wondering if they swam close to the body since it sat in the water over night.